Chocolate Coulant

I need a chocolate coulant recipe!!!!

Spaghetti Meatball Marinara

I am in research of a few dishes for my dad's cafe and I am stuck! I don't really know the type of food for cafe and the size of the portion for each dish. I asked some of my friends and told me that it should be western and the portion should be small. I have posted 1 food, the Thai Chicken Patty, though it's Asian dish, but I like the size of the portion. For the second dish, I decided to take on Spaghetti Meatball Marinara. It is very cheap! All I used for the sauce were only onions, ripe tomatoes,shallot, garlic and water.

So what I did was :

I made tomato concasse, procedure: cut X shape on the bottom of the tomatoes, and blanch them in boiling water briefly, say 10 to 15 seconds. Remove them and shock in cold water to stop carryover cooking. Peel off, deseed ( but do not throw away them ), and roughly chop.

End product of tomato concasse

Roughly Chopped Shallot

This is the juice that I collected from the jelly-like thingy in the tomatoes that many chefs throw away.  Heston Blumenthal , 2nd best chef in the world, said that the jelly-like-flesh in the tomatoes contain the most umami or MSG as we know. That will boost the meatiness in anything that we cook. Since then, I never thrown them away anymore. Save cost but tiring. Procedure for this: Collect all of them, put in strainer on top of a bowl, and sprinkle with salt. The salt will absorb all the juice out of the jelly and drip into the bowl. This is what you get.

This is a mixture of water and tomato sauce. I add some water into my almost-empty-tomato sauce bottle, gave a few shakes and pour into measuring jug. Don't wanna waste anything.

I added a few tablespoon of tomato sauce to enhance the marinara sauce flavour

Minced garlic

Diced onion

I sweat the onion until it was translucent. I am not sure whether or not it should be browned. I need advice on this.

I then added in the garlic and shallot, and cook them for several minutes without giving any colour

Next, I tossed in the tomato concasse together with the juices and tomato sauce

Cooked them until it turned darker red. When it was already reduced up to half, I added the mixture of water and tomato sauce

Simmered until it reduced and thickened to the right consistency. I seasoned after I have got the desired consistency.

This is the end product of the spaghetti meatball marinara.

I will post the recipe for the meatball. The meatball is actually very simple. So, how is the taste of the sauce ? I actually did not really like it since it was my first trial. My friend told me that the sauce tasted like tap water. F**k him. Just kidding. Maybe I needed to add more cheese onto it. I tried adding butter and it actually tasted much much better, but the sauce colour faded and became unpleasant. Guys, please advice!

Thai Burger With Cucumber

I found the cheapest and delicious (that's what my friends said) recipe from Bon Appetite magazine. It only needs chicken breast and some simple ingredients. However, I have modified the recipe. So if you find the same recipe in the magazine and wonder why the weight of all the ingredients are different, you know why. Here is the recipe.

Serve 4

Chicken breast, small diced                         450g

Breadcrumb                                                  40g

Cornflour                                                       3g

Small Chilli, deseeded and finely chopped  2g

Spring onion, finely chopped                        5g 

Grated zest of 1

Juice of 1 lime

Fish Sauce                                                     1ml

Fresh Coriander, finely chopped                  15g

Whole Egg                                                     1nos

Sugar                                                              2pinches

Blackpepper, crushed                                    3gr

Salt                                                                 5pinches

For the cucumber:

Cucumber                                                       200g

Sugar                                                               5g

Light Soy Sauce                                              5ml

White vinegar                                                  5ml

Mix the breadcrumb with the small diced chicken breast in a metal bowl

Add the cornflour into the mixture

Deseed the chilli and finely chop it. The finer, the better so that it can be spreaded evenly in the mixture

Grate the zest and combine with the mixture. Slice the lime and extract the juice, but don't let the seed to drop into the mixture.

Pick the fresh coriander and finely chop it, and add into the mixture. Instead of chopping, I sliced it finely ONCE because I did not want to bruise the herbs and lose the flavour.

This is the end product of the mixture and how it has to look like after you mix all of them. Next, mix everything by hand and squeeze a big chunck or break it into a smaller pieces. At this stage, you can start preheat your oven to 180 degree celcius for later use

Get 125gr of the mixture and roll it into a ball, and give it a few taps on your palm to flatten it to a desired thickness

Cut and discard the tip and the bottom of the cucumber, deseed and discard them. Next, slice them into medium dice. Combine all the ingredients for all the marination and put them inside the chiller for a few hours.

The best part!!! Pan sear the chicken patty, give a gorgeous brown colour on both sides.  Put them in the oven and roast it for 10 minutes. It is even better to roast it in a "bag" made of parchment paper so that it cooks in its own juice (en papilotte). Once it's cooked to the right temperature (internal must reach 72 degree Celcius), let it rest for a few minutes on the plate

Serve it with a lime wedge and the cold cucumber. It is supposed to be served with fried sweet potato, but I did not buy it because I wanna save my wallet. :D I would prefer serving some salad on the plate to improve the presentation.

Why I am not using minced chicken breast instead of dice it manually ? It is because minced chicken does not have as good texture as diced chicken breast. You can actually make 2 chicken patties using 1 minced chicken breast and diced for the other breast, and compare the difference. It is actually quite a huge difference. The diced chicken breast has better texture, especially when it is chewed together with the cucumber. It is just HOLY COW!

Beef Steak. Disappointment.

I went to some bar/cafe/restaurant (u choose) @ Orchard Road. I won't mention the name, but I am sure you can make a good guess. Some people their food is great, so I went there with my brother and my mom to try the steak and only disappointment welcomed us. The service was not that good. I was standing in front of the lady server and she pretended that she didn't see me for a few seconds and then greeted me. Asked me whether I would like to sit indoor or outdoor, I said I would take a look the outdoor for a while, and her response was only "yes" and gave me that freaking look.

Good decoration on the wall. So teenager.

I came across this drink on the menu called Mango Caramel Mojito. I did not know that mango and caramel could go so well, but it was just not a good idea to drink alcoholic drink together with a heavy dish such as New York Strip. Still, it rocks.

My bro ordered fillet mignon that cost S$42.90 . I would say that the Fillet Mignon was quite good, though they served the steak at a wrong doneness my bro requested. They borught it back to the kitchen and cook it longer, but did not change to a new one. Of course, its not a fine dining restaurant anyway. Sorry that I don't have all the pictures of the steak because we were damn hungry that we just forgot to take some shots.

I just said that I don't have any of the steak pictures, but how come I have one here ? Yes this is a New York Strip that I  ordered there, but it is not mine. I got it from Google for illustration. The New York Strip I ate there was just tough and cost a bomb ( S$39.90). It would worth the money if the new york strip was tender. Plus, I requested for medium doneness, and still tough. I ate a S$12 sirloin steak at some place that is much more tender than this.

But, for me THE WORST STEAK ON EARTH is the one served ON A HOT PLATE! I can't understand that! Who on earth would want to order medium-doneness steak, but turns out to be medium-well or even well done doneness. What you think!?
Overall experience was not exciting. We spent S$150.00 ++, and felt it was not worth it at all. I will never come back there. But, I think the bar is great though I did not try it personally.

Chocolate Souffle Trial no.3 Final With Plating

Okay, I reached home at 5pm from work and decided to make another souffle for the last time here. I will look for the greatest souffle in town and share how it is here. Why am I so into making a good souffle ? Because souffle is so simple, yet so difficult. I will share some scientific theory that I learnt from a book here and maybe you will realize that making souffle is not as simple as a video demonstrate it. So here are the photos of the mise-en-place and final product. I didn't take a picture of the process because it's roughly the same as the last 2 trials. I include plating as for a practice for me too. This is the first time I do such a plating, so if it isn't nice, you should excuse me :D .  Here they are:

For the garnish I use a mixture of peanuts, dried guava, dried berries, and dried mango. They provide different colours improve texture and flavour. I personally believe that chocolate souffle should be accompanied by some acidic fruits so that it is not too heavy on the palate (correct me if I am wrong).

This was the plan of how the plating was going to be. Just a rough  idea. Here there are (from left to right) : Strawberry, dried mango, julienned dried berry, almond nuts (the price of 1 packet of it is also NUTS!), I don't know the name for the white nut sorry, julienned dried mango on top of dried berry, paysanned dried mango, and dried guava.

This is a lemon custard that I put inside a bottle. As I mentioned that I personally think that acidic sauce will be a good accompaniment. But my lemon custard was damn sour. The basic ingredients for the lemon custard that I made was: Lemon Juice, light cream ( I didn't use thick cream as I don't wanna make the whole dish very heavy on the palate ), egg yolk, fine sugar, cinnamon stick, and lemon zest.

This was my 2nd rough idea of the plating with the lemon custard underneath and sprinkled chopped peanuts.

This was the final product. For this recipe I purposely added a pinch of cayenne pepper to give a little beat of kick. Unfortunately, this time the souffle did not raise as well as the 2nd trial's. Anyway, on top of the souffle is almond peanut and some chopped peanuts. I actually wanted to put a spoonful of ice cream, but after I gave some thought about it, I refused. Ice cream is expensive, and turned out the total cost for the peanuts really sucked out all my cash.

I am not saying this plating is beautiful, I am still learning and this was my first time. I really hope someone out there will give me some advice how to improve on the plating. Personally, I feel that the plating is quite overcrowded.

Okay, so here are some scientific explanation of souffle. Let's begin from the basic ingredients:

1. Egg white - This is the most important ingredient that raise the souffle. So how does this happen ? When we whisk the egg white, we are creating a new structure. The proteins unfold and bond to each other. After some times, a foam will appear. This happens when the proteins unfold and creates a kind of reinforcement for the bubble walls. As we force the whisk trough the white, the whisk wires drag some of the liquid with them and create a pulling force that unfolds the compacted protein molecules. At the same time, air is also incorporated into the foam. All this unfolded proteins will gather where air and water meet, holding both water and air in place. This is why when beating is continued, the foam will double in volume.The stiffer the foam, the more air bubbles inside, and thus, will let the souffle to rise even higher. Overbeating will cause the foam to be grainy, losing volume, and separate into a dry forth and runny liquid.
2. Acid - acid plays a very important role as it helps to stabilize the foam in egg white during whisking. Acid will unfold the protein in the egg white further and create a network. The addition of acid boosts the number of free-floating hydrogen ions in the egg white, which makes it much harder for the sulfur-hydrogen groups to shed their own hydrogen and so slows the sulfure bonding down to a crawl. However, adding acid will increase the whisking time, but will give a better result and more stable against overwhipping.
3. Sugar - sugar helps foam making. Adding early in the process, it delays foaming and reduce the foam's volume and lightness.It is due to sugar's interference with the unfolding and bonding of the proteins.The reduciton of volume and lightness is caused by the syrupy sugar-egg mixture unable to spread into thin bubble walls. Sugar helps to improve the foam's stability by making the liquid thick and cohesive. In the oven, the dissolved sugar hangs onto the water molecules and so delays evaporation in high heat. Sugar is usually added into the egg white when the foam has formed or when the proteins have unfolded.

 There are several ingredients that we have to avoid in order to achieve the best souffle results. The must-avoid-ingredients are:

1. Salt - this bastard will increase the whipping time and decreases the foam's stability as well. It reduce the number of protein-protein bonds and weaken the overall structure. If salt is needed in the recipe, add it to the other components of the dish.
2. Fat - Fat in oil and egg yolk interfere with foaming in the same ways, by competing with the proteins for a place at the air-water interface without offering any structural reinforcement and by interfering with the bonding of the protein molecules. Any trace of oil or fat in the egg white will make you exercise even harder and longer, plus the foam will be unstable. However, they can be safely mixed with a finished foam, as how many recipes instruct.

When we bake the souffle, the higher the temperature, the higher the souffle will rise. However, it also means a greater subsequent overpressure and quicker fall. A thick souffle mix can't rise as easily as a thin, but also won't fall as easily and can resist the overpressure. How does souffle rise ? When the souffle is filled with small air bubbles, the heat causes the gases to expand and water to vaporize into steam, so the bubbles expand and raise the mix. After the souffle is cooked, cooling causes the bubble gases to contract, and souffle will shrink.Fun fact about souffle is that a fallen souffle will rise again if put back into the oven as those air bubbles are still in there. However you won't get as high a rise the second or third time around due to stiffened souffle mix and has less water available.

That is all for my post today. If there is any mistake or disagreement please comment and I really seek for advice for improvement. Thank you and enjoy.

Hollandaise Sauce

Today, me and the whole class did a Hollandaise Sauce or one of our mother sauces.

This is a Hollandaise Sauce and it is best served on asparagus, egg benedict, and poach egg

The picture below represent the emulsion under microscop. The big droplets represent oil droplets, the smaller one is the liquid droplets, and the smallest will be the lecithin that coats the droplets.

The main ingredients for basic Hollandaise Sauce are :

1. Egg yolk - it contains a natural emulsifying agent called lecithin. It will coat the fat droplets and one end of the molecule attracts water while the other end is drawn to fat. This process is called emulsion.
2. Acid - it plays a very important role in stabilizing the emulsion of the oil and liquid. The acid causes the protein to repel each other, so that they break down/ unfold before bonding to each other and form an extended network rather than dense curds. This is why acid can help to prevent the sauce from curdling. Acid is also to improve the taste and tanginess of the sauce. Another important reason of using acid because it makes the environment acidic, thus it help to kill Salmonella in the sauce since we are using raw egg. The fun fact about acid is that when the acidity (low pH) of the sauce is closed to the acidity of yogurt, the yolk can be safely heated up to 90degree Celcius. WOW!
3. Fat ( clarified or whole butter, warm ) - this is the medium for the emulsion to occur since emulsion only occurs when there is the presence of oil, water, and the third ingredient : imulsifier.
4. Water - we used a little bit of water in the egg yolk before heating it slowly on the double boiler. This is because the water helps to prevent the heat from raising the egg yolk temperature increasing too fast that it may lead to scrambled egg.
5. Salt - people always think that salt is just for seasoning. WRONG! I just learnt that salt also plays a very important role in the sauce making. The salt causes the yolk granules to fall apart into its component particles, which makes the yolks become both more clear and more viscous (thick). If left undiluted, this viscosity (thickness) will help break the oil into smaller droplets and smaller droplets mean thicker and creamier sauce.
6. Pepper - this is for seasoning.
7. Tabasco - for seasoning.
8. Cayenne pepper - for seasoning.

Recipe:

3 egg yolks

1 cup (1/2 pound) melted butter, warm

30ml water

1 tablespoon lemon juice or white wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Dash of cayenne pepper

Preparation and cooking process:

1. Set up a double boiler using a sauce pan, filled with water about 1/3 and heat the water up to simmering stage ( 82-96 degree Celcius ).
2. Crack open the egg and separate the egg white and the yolk. We will only use the egg yolk.
3. Add a little bit of cold water into the egg yolk.
4. Cover the pan with a cloth and mount ( is that a correct word ? ) the bowl onto the sauce pan (the cloth support the bowl so that it does not move around, so we can perform one man show- whisking while pouring the fat without no help ).
5. Start whisking the egg yolk until it reaches the consistency that is desired. At this stage, the heat from the simmering water actually denatures and coagulates the protein in the egg yolk. Coagulation begins at 60 degree Celcius. The coagulation gives viscosity to the sauce. Timing and heat control is very important as too much heating will make the proteins coagulate into little solid curds and the sauce separates. This separation occurs at around 70 - 77 degree Celcius.
6. Once it has reached the desirable consistency, start adding the warm whole butter in a thin stream line slowly. This is a very important stage because when we start adding the fat and whisk it, we already start the emulsion process. Do not add too much fat at one go, otherwise it will split. Emulsion simply means the ability to stabilize a system containing two immiscible liquids ( water and oil ). When we whisk the oil, we are actually breaking the oil into tiny droplets that can reach up to a ten-thousandth and a tenth of a millimeter across. The emulsifier in the egg yolk - lecithin, will quickly coat the droplets and attract the water droplets and bind them. In the early mixing, when little or no oil has yet been emulsified, it is easy for large droplets to avoud the churning action of the whisk and collect at the surface. If a large volume of oil is added before the previous one has been fully emulsified, then the bowl may end up with more unemulsified oil than water and result in an inside-out emulsion, oily and runny. This explains how splitting occurs.
7. Keep adding the fat slowly until it reaches the consistency that is desired.
8. Add the acid and seasoning for the last touch.
9. Tabasco and cayenne pepper are used to improve the flavor too.

Hollandaise sauce must be kept at temperature 64 degree Celcius and can only last for no more than 1 hour due to bacterial growth from the raw egg ( Salmonella ). Therefore Hollandaise sauce is always served a-la-minute (last minute before serving).

Please comment and if you notice any mistake, let me know and correct me. Thank you.

Chocolate Souffle Trial no. 2

Finally, for the first time ever, I tried a chocolate souffle outside. I just had it @ Bakerzin. It was costy, S$9.50, but the taste was just worth the money.

This is the best chocolate souffle I have ever tried. Why am I so sure that this souffle is the best I have ever tried ? Because last night I just ate the worst chocolate souffle, and it was my souffle!

The chocolate souffle was extremely light, but didn't have eggy taste or cake-like texture. The texture of it was VERY light and fluffy. When I piereced the centre, the steam escaped. SMOOTH! The interior was moist but not wet.The chocolate flavour was perfect for me as it was not too sweet nor too bland. The souffle came with vanilla ice cream that balanced the heat from the souffle. It was like hot and cold all together on one palate. Peanust were served as garnish on the top of the souffle, it added crunchiness to the light-texture. Unfortunately, the souffle didn't raise upstraight, instead it raised to its side. So, tonight I am going to redo the research on my own souffle recipe. I have to achieve the same or even better light,fluffy texture, with the right sweetness of chocolate flavour. It just gets harder. let see what will the outcome be later. Gonna update again later.

UPDATE: I just did the 2nd trial of making souffle.

I have modified the recipe as follow:

150g               chocolate

40g                 cocoa powder

30g                 corn flour

30g                 sugar

100ml             water

5ml                 lemon juice

4                    egg white       

There is no difference in the method that I used, but the mixture that I made was more runny than before which I expected to give a lighter and puffy texture. I did not grated the chocolate like in the first trial as i dont wanna have a grainy texture on my souffle.The 1st trial called for 40g of corn flour and I changed it to 30g for a less thicker paste. I baked the souffle at 180 degree Celcius for exactly 10 minutes.

The first minute after I popped the souffle into the oven

After 4 minutes

6 minutes

End Results

The result that I achieved was quite satisfying as it raised upstraight, though a little bit slanted. The texture of it was very light and fluffy. The surface was smooth. It raised well but did not achieve the height that I wanted. Unfortunately, the taste of it was a little bit floury. I think I got to cook the flour a little bit longer. However, the outer part was quite crispy, but not good enough. Overall, the 2nd trial has produced a much better result than the 1st one, but I still like Bakerzin's chocolate souffle much better.

I am going to do the 3rd final trial and I will include plating. I have to get the best result on the final trial. I will include a egg-yolk-based sauce, so that I can utilize every single part of the egg. Other than that, I will also include the scientific theory of making souffle that I get from internet and books for a better understanding. Please comment and give some suggestion for a better improvement, whoever you are!

Chocolate Souffle Trial no.1

This is an idea that I just came across, which is to post all the food I cook on the blog to keep track of what I have been doing. For today, I am learning how to make a Chocolate Souffle. Yes, souffle is simple, yet difficult. Why is it difficult ? A good souffle should be round with high straight sides, partly gooey in the centre (or a bit drier, based on individual preference), not taste too eggy or too cake-like and should be as light as possible, and has a smooth surface and not cracked. I learnt about the basic of souffle and tried some simple recipe ( and I will keep modifying the recipe ). Trust me, the result that I got was an epic fail, but it's will be better, The recipe that I used was ( the most basic recipe ):

100g dark chocolate, finely grated

40g cocoa powder

40g corn flour

100ml water

1t lemon juice

30g sugar

4 egg white

This is the chocolate that I have grated finely ( 100g ). It was a really work out, good enough to burn some calories before eating the souffle.

Heat up 100ml water in a sauce pan ,on low-heat. Add the flour and cocoa powder into the pan and mix. Cook into a paste.

Brush the ramekin with butter. Make sure every side of the ramekin is well-coated with butter. I added about half table spoon of grated chocolate to create a chocolate layer on the ramekin as seen in the picture.

Honestly, I had over beaten the egg white ( I whisked manually

by hand, and still I over-beat.WINNER! ). I added the lemon juice after beating the egg whites a few times. When it has reached soft peaks, I added the 30g sugar to give glossiness to the meringue.

I folded in the meringue and the chocolate paste till smooth. Then, I added the finely grated chocolate and folded everything to combine. Next, I poured the mixture into the ramekin and gave a few taps on the table to make sure there was no air pocket underneath or in the center of the mixture in the ramekin. Lastly, I put the ramekin into the oven and baked at 180 degree Celcius for 10mins.

The mixture raised after a few minutes of baking.

I am not trying to deny or giving excuses, but to be honest, this is how a failed-souffle looked like. A proper souffle does not rise like this. This looks more like a backside than a crown-like-souffle.

See, I had my souffle's surface cracked, and you can see the centre part is moist which is quite right. This is the end result I got.

For the taste, and characteristic that I got from the end results are as follow:

• The amount of the sugar I added was just nice and the sweetness was just right.
• Gooey in the center.
• The texture was quite light but as I dug deeper into the ramekin, the texture became much more like a cake (FAILED!).
• The souffle did not raise properly, which looked like a butt rather than a crown
• Crack on the surface.
• Lack of chocolate flavour.

I actually made 2 portions of it and gave the other 1 to my maid. I purposely baked the other one for 20 mins, and she told me that it was bitter (I believed it was burnt). Lesson learnt: although you burnt your food, your maid may still wanna try.

This is a properly-raised souffle by Gordon Ramsay:

This is just amazing.

The key for the best souffle is to avoid as much fat as possible as it will break the air bubbles in the meringue and cause the souffle to raise improperly. However, many recipes call for egg yolk or butter which contains a lot of fat and yet it has a better result ( or I am just noob at making souffle ). It is quite contradicting, but there is no give up. I will keep modifying the recipe and test every possible way to make a much better souffle. Hopefully by the 3rd trial, I will get the best result, and it will be posted here. Overall, today's souffle trial WAS AN EPIC FAIL! Feel embarrassed ? Of course not! Otherwise I would not have posted the pictures and the results. There is a long way to go.

All comments and advice will be welcome. Thank you guys.